Ruminations & stories of riding bicycles in all four seasons.

Wow, I didn’t realize it’s been three months since my last post. It wasn’t intentional. Sometimes I need a mental break from sharing my life. It’s nice to ride and not think about my next blog post.

In terms of riding bikes, this summer has been different than any summer prior to it. I’m no longer commuting by bike. It’s still a hard adjustment to make. I loved my daily bike commute, in all weather. My rides now are almost all leisure rides. The past two months I’ve ridden only three of my five bikes. My Pugsley, my Brompton, and my Xtracycle. With the abundance of new mountain bikes trails being built in my neighborhood, I’ve been learning to be a mountain biker with my fatbike. Riding after work I much prefer to be out in the woods on the fatbike than riding in traffic on the roads. It’s so much more relaxing.

Friday evening Susan had other commitments so I had the evening to myself. I wanted to go ride some trails. The mtn bike trails weren’t really an option due to all the rain we’ve been having. We didn’t always have mountain bike trails in my part of town. This has only happened in the past 1-5 years. There’s always been lots of unofficial trails in the open spaces and woods in town. Many of them have been there for years, are hard-packed and more immune to rainy periods. I decided to string together a loop containing a mixture of rail trail, abandoned railroad right-of-ways, gravel roads, and neighborhood trails. The pictures are in order, but I didn’t stop and take pictures of everything.

Crossing Kingsbury Creek on a snowmobile trail bridge.Riding the abandoned DWP railroad right-of-way. If you know Duluth, this rail line parallels the Munger Rail Trail a little further up on the same ridge line.Heading for Ely’s Peak and the tunnel under it. The arrow points to where the tunnel goes through the rock hillside.The trail curves to the right in a horseshoe fashion eventually leading to the tunnel under Ely’s Peak.

Ely’s Peak tunnel eastern end. The tunnel is 520 ft long. It curves so you can’t see the other end when standing at the entrance.I’ve been coming to the tunnel for 12 years. It used to be spooky because I never used to see anybody here. But it’s become more popular as more people learn about about. I’ve never saw anybody else here until two year ago. Now I see several groups of people every time I come out to it. Eventually it will become part of the local trail system.

Inside the tunnel approaching the west end.A DWP rail trestle west of the tunnel. It is extremely rough due to years of ATV traffic. At one time some one nailed down strips of plywood in the middle to try and smooth it out, But the plywood has deteriorated.The DWP rail corridor west of the tunnel.This intersects Skyline Parkway where it meets Beck’s Road. I turned onto Skyline and headed back towards home. The western portion of Skyline Parkway is gravel.

Skyline Parkway at Bardon’s Peak. The body of water you see is the St. Louis River about 7 miles before it flows into Lake Superior.Another view from Bardon’s Peak looking towards Duluth and Lake Superior beyond.This is a snowmobile trail in the winter. It connects Magney Snively park to the DWP and Munger Trail. I took it back to the DWP.Once back on the DWP rail corridor I took it back east through Spirit Mountain Resort and then home. Here is a link to the route I took.

It was a nice way to end a Friday. Only the first mile and the last mile were on paved roads. It was a 17 mile loop done completely within the city limits of Duluth.